Intel i7 3960X EE / Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 / 16GB GSkill Ripjaws Z (2133mhz) Review

Today we have multiple reviews focusing on the new Intel X79 launch, featuring two high end motherboards from Asus ... the £280 P9X79 Deluxe and flagship £335 Rampage IV Extreme ... for those with deeper pockets. That said, we know that many people won't want to spend £300 (or more) on a new motherboard so our third article today focuses on the Gigabyte GA X79 UD3, which retails at a modest £199. Our other reviews today feature some insanely high powered graphics solutions, such as the HD6990, twin GTX 580's and Quad SLI 590's - paired up with the i7 3960X EE, when it is overclocked to the limits. Great fun, but not always practical. This article targets the enthusiast who might overclock a little, while using a reference cooler and without increasing core voltage. That user will probably want a good gaming experience, but won't necessarily want to spend between £500 and £1,300 for the pleasure. If you have read our other reviews today then you may want to skip over some of the pages in this review, as we have to recap on the new technology for those readers who have found this editorial first. Intel have had it all their own way in 2011 with Sandybridge dominating both the performance and sales charts. When AMD released the FX8150 in October it failed to ignite the hearts and minds of the enthusiast audience, being launched to a mixed, but mainly negative reception. Intel’s 2600k still held the performance crown in the sub £300 sector, being quickly superseded by the clock ramped Intel Core i7 2700k. The gulf just widened even more. To make matters worse, AMD have had nothing to target Intel’s ultra high end Core i7 970, 980x and 990x processors … so it is up to Intel to replace them with a new range of high performing silicon. X58/LGA1366 has now been replaced by X79/LGA2011. Today Intel are launching three new Core i7 processors. The Core i7 3820 @ 3.6ghz, The Core i7 3930k @ 3.2ghz and the Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition @ 3.3ghz. We are looking at the latter model, pairing it up with the high end Asus P9X79 Deluxe motherboard. Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition Core i7 3930k Core i7 3820 Number of Processor Cores 6 6 4 Number of simultaneous threads with Intel Hyper Threading Technology 12 12 8 Intel Smart Cache Size 15 MB 12 MB 10 MB Processor Base Frequency 3.3ghz 3.2ghz 3.6ghz Memory Frequency 1600 mhz 1600 mhz 1600 mhz Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 2.0 2.0 Number of DDR3 Memory Channels 4 4 4 Overclocking Enabled YES YES YES (partial) Intel Express Chipset X79 X79 X79 Socket LGA2011 LGA2011 LGA2011 As the table above highlights, both 3960X and 3930K are unlocked processors, while the cheaper 3820 allows for ‘partial’ overclocking. This means the user can adjust the core multiplier to a preset maximum. UK pricing has yet to be confirmed, but the 3960X should cost around $1,000 in the states and the 3930k at $610. We would make an educated guess that the 3960X will cost around £800 inc vat in the UK, directly replacing the 990X at the same price. The new processor range features a design with up to 6 execution cores. Each core supports two threads, which we all know as 'Intel Hyper Threading Technology'. This logical thread basis doubles the physical count, so a 6 core processor will have 6+6 for a total of 12. Each core has a 32kb instruction and a 32kb data first level cache (L1) and a 256kb shared instruction/data mid level (L2) cache. The new processors have between 10mb and 15mb of last level (LLC cache), up to 2.5 MB per core. The processors support four DDR3 channels with a single unbuffered DIMM per channel. Officially they support memory of 1066mhz, 1333mhz and 1600mhz, although as we will see in another review today, this can only be used as a rough guideline. The Direct Media Interface Generation 2 (DMI2) serves as the chip to chip interface to the PCH. The DM12 port supports a x4 link width and only operates in x4 mode when in DMI2. It operates at PCIe2 or PCIe1 speeds and is transparent to software. There is support for processor and peer to peer writes and reads with 64 bit address support. Above, a CPUz overview of the Core i7 3960X processor. The processor has 6 cores and 12 threads, with 15MB of 'Level 3' cache. The new chip has support for 40 PCI Express lanes. The latest range of processors are based on Intel's 'tock' cycle, before the 22nm Ivy Bridge chips hit retail in the near future. Above, the Core i7 3960X processor Die detail, showing the 6 cores, which share the L3 cache. There are 2.27 billion transistors with this particular design and the chip measures 20.8mm x 20.9 mm. Above, the 3960X EE engineering sample we were sent for review. These processors are noticeably bigger than the previous series. Intel say that when compared against the 990X that the new processor is 20% faster with video editing, 102% faster with memory performance, and 34% faster with 3D Game Physics. Sounds really good on paper, but the proof is in the testing. Intel have worked with Asetek on the release of a new 'All in One' liquid cooler, called the RTS2011LC. This is designed to work with the LGA 2011/1366/1155 and 1156 socket. Our sample arrived in a plain white box but there should be some rather attractive Intel coloured artwork with the final retail version. Inside, the unit is shipped within a molded cardboard box. The bundle includes mounting brackets and screws for all Intel platforms, as well as installation instructions and thermal paste. Intel also supply a single fan. The cooler itself will be familiar to many Kitguru readers as it looks similar to many we have reviewed before from Antec. It uses Propylene Glycol as the cooling liquid. The RTS2011LC weighs 820 grams. The cooler uses a copper 'cold plate' design which uses 'state of the art, ultra efficient heat transferring microchannels'. Intel claim that these new microchannels are able to transfer heat from the CPU to the liquid more efficiently than previous generation designs. The radiator is 150mm x 118mm x 37 mm and Intel supply a 120mm fan with the product, which screws into one side of the radiator. This is a custom design fan by Asetek specifically for this product, rated at 74 CFM. It spins between 800 rpm and 2,200 rpm with noise emissions rated between 21 dBa and 35 dBa. There is a single 4 PWM header cable which connects to the motherboard directly. The RTS2011LC uses soft rubber hoses, which are said to last for 50,000 hours. We noticed that the mounting system was identical to other ASETEK sourced designs and as such the ANTEC KUHLER units are interchangeable. We tried the Antec Kuhler 920 and found it was a better performer than this Intel branded model, due to a thicker radiator with twin fan configuration. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later. For this system build, G Skill sent us 16GB of their Ripjaws Z memory (4x 4GB), which is configured at 2133mhz. The Ripjaws Z memory uses small black headspreaders, ideal for space hogging oversized CPU coolers. This memory works at 9-11-10-28 timings at 1.65V. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later. Even though we aren't using it for the review today, Intel supplied us with the DX79SI motherboard which is shipped in a very ominous looking box. More than a passing resemblance to the Skulltrail products of yesteryear. Intel include a backplate, a 2 way and 3 way SLI bridge and a mousemat. Our reviewers sample didn't have any literature, but you can expect this with a retail sample. The motherboard is an attractive design built around a black PCB with blue slots and accented heatsinks. The board is populated with Solid State Capacitors and a 'power supervisor' for enhanced stability. It has six SATA ports, 2 x 6.0 GB/s (blue) and 4 x 3.0 GB/s (black). Board dimensions are 29.46 cm x 24.38 cm. The motherboard has three PCI Express x 16 slots for triple card CrossfireX and SLI configurations. If used in tri mode they run in x16/x8/x8 mode. There are also two PCI express 2.0 slots and one PCI slot. Along the bottom of the board is an infrared receiver and transmitter which supports receiving, learning and emitting capabilities. It can control up to two additional CE devices and eliminates the need for a USB based CIR dongle. Intel have included diagnostic LED's with this board to help with troubleshooting. and there are tweaking switches for overclocking, power on and reset functionality. There are the usual plethora of USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 header ports. The DX79SI supports Quad Channel memory across eight slots. It can accept a total of 64GB of non ECC system memory with speeds up to 2400mhz O.C. The rear I/O panel has several GB lan connectors, two USB 3.0 ports and six USB 2.0 ports with a Firewire connector positioned in the middle. Eight channel audio is supported from this panel along with an optical cable. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later. The Gigabyte X79-UD3 motherboard ships in a white box with a logo of transparent cube on the front. This product features the new 3D Bios which has been heavily promoted by Gigabyte within the last week. Inside is a driver/software disc, a user manual, quick installation guide, four sata cables, I/O shield, a 2 way, 3 way and 4 way SLI connector and a 2 way CrossfireX connector. The motherboard is finished in a lovely matt black with black/dark grey heatsinks. It complies to the ATX standard measuring 30.5cm x 24.4 cm. The Gigabyte motherboard is passively cooled with several heatsinks, designed to improve stability under heavy load, and when overclocking. Unlike the more expensive ASUS motherboards on test today in other reviews, this Gigabyte board only has 4 memory slots for support up to 32GB. The only downside with this is that you will need to buy 8GB sticks to achieve a full 32GB, and they are very expensive. There is support for 2133/1866/1333 and 1066mhz DDR3 memory. As with all X79 boards the P9X79 Deluxe supports a Quad Channel memory architecture. The board has four PCI Express x16 slots, two of which run at x16 (PCIEx16_1 and PCIEx16_2) and two at x8 (PCIEx8_1 and PCIEx8_2). All PCI Express x16 slots conform to the PCI Express 3.0 standard. The GA X79 UD3 has full support for 2 way, 3 way and 4 way CrossfireX and SLI. The PCIEx16 slots operate up to x8 mode when 3 way/4 way CrossfireX/SLI is enabled. There are also 2x PCI Express x 1 slots and a single PCI slot. The Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 board has 10 SATA slots. The two grey ports on the far left are controlled by the Marvell 88SE9172 chip and are SATA 3 (6GB/s) rated (supporting Raid 0 and Raid 1). The four black ports in the middle are controlled by the Intel X79 chipset and are SATA 2 (3 GB/s) rated. They support Raid 0, 1, 5 and 10. The two white ports on the far right are also controlled by the Intel X79 chipset and are SATA 3 (6GB/s) rated. The final two SATA ports are along the bottom of the board, vertically mounted for front panel connection. These are controlled by the Marvell 88SE9172 processor and are SATA 3 (6 GB/s) rated. Next to these are audio headers, and multiple USB headers with a front panel section on the far right. The back panel has connectors for 1x PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 1x optical S/PDIF out, 1x coaxial S/PDIF out, 8 x USB 2.0/1.1, 2 x USB 3.0/2.0, 2 x eSATA 6 GB/s connector, 1 x RJ-45 port and 6 audio jacks for surround sound. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later. Gigabyte have just released their new '3D Bios' interface (with American Megatrends) which is patent pending. It allows the user to click on specific parts of the 3D image on the screen to adjust relevant settings. There are a variety of settings with straightforward sliders, all accessible with the mouse pointer. Gigabyte also allow for a 'traditional' style interface system which will suit the older audience (like me) better. I wouldn't say I disliked the new interface, but I prefer having everything in easy to see, text based pages. The M.I.T. section allows for access to voltage, frequencies and power settings. I have to say that while everything worked fine, I was more at home with the ASUS X79 bios configurations. The Asus Rampage IV Extreme has one of the most intuitive, fully featured bioses I have seen to date. The 'BIOS Features' section has all of the settings for configuring the boot menu and hard drive/optical priorities. The Peripherals panel allows for control over USB, SATA and legacy support. Once configured it will unlikely be touched again. The Power Management panel lets the user configure power by keyboard, and resume terms. I didn't find the Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 as easy to overclock as the Asus P9X79 Deluxe or Asus Rampage IV Extreme. For this article we are focusing on a different style of overclocking ... without increasing core voltage. That said, I do want to report my findings when I pushed the board as hard as possible. We achieved a 4.6ghz setting, but it took me around half an hour to get the perfect settings for this specific CPU. The Asus Rampage IV Extreme on the other hand was configured within the space of a few minutes, holding stability with a wider variance of settings. We would assume this is because of an early bios but didn't receive a newer one before going live. Sometimes voltages would 'reset' to default indicating some potential early bios issues. 4.5ghz was easier, requiring less tweaking with the power settings. We weren't able to get this board stable at the same speeds we did with both ASUS boards. Getting the GSKILL memory stable at 2133mhz was not a problem, the Gigabyte motherboard detected the profile and configured everything automatically. As mentioned, for the purposes of this review we are running the system at 4.2ghz, with default voltages. This is a good figure to achieve as it doesn't require hard core cooling, while offering a solid boost over the reference clocks. If you bought the Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 motherboard - achieving a 4.2ghz overclock (900mhz) from the Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition is as easy as changing the clock ratio from 33 to 42. Strangely enough, CPU Z validator wouldn't validate the default core clock settings, with power saving enabled. Unsurprisingly, it wouldn't validate our 4.2ghz settings either, even though the system was perfectly stable. As mentioned earlier in the review, we are focusing on a stable overclock this time without playing with core voltage and other power tweak settings. We are running the i7 3960X EE at 4.2ghz which only requires one change in the Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 bios. To keep down costs a little we are testing with a single Sapphire HD6970 graphics card. Processor: Intel i7 3960X EE @ 4.2ghz Motherboard: Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 Cooler: Intel RTS2011LC Memory: 16GB GSkill Ripjaws Z 9-11-10-28 @ 2133mhz Graphics Card: Sapphire HD6970 Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1200W Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case No PSU Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD. Boot Drive: Crucial 128GB SSD. Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB. Software: Windows 7 Enterprise (64-bit). FRAPS Professional. SiSoft Sandra. Windows Media Player/VLC Player. CPUz. GPUz. CPUID Hardware Monitor. Cinebench R11.5 (64-bit). Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 Ultra. Cyberlink MediaEspresso. CrystalDiskMark. 3D Mark Vantage. 3DMark 11. PCMark 7. Catalyst 11.10 Games: Battlefield 3 Comparison Systems: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 Cooler: Noctua NH D14 Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB) Power Supply: ADATA 1200W Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3 Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire Intel Core i7 990X Processor: Intel Core i7 990x Cooler: Corsair H100 Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB Power Supply: Corsair AX1200 Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred Intel Core i7 2700k Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3. Power Supply: Corsair 850W. Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD. Intel Core i7 2600k Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3 Cooler: Intel XTS-100H Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB) Graphics Card: HIS HD6970 IceQ Mix Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB Intel Core i5 2500k Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB) Graphics Card: HIS HD6970 IceQ Mix Power Supply: Corsair 850W. Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD. AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 Cooler: Noctua NH D14 Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB) Graphics Card: HIS HD6970 IceQ Mix Power Supply: ADATA 1200W Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3 Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use. At 4.2ghz, the Core i7 3960X EE delivers great all round performance results. Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk. Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable: Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems Multicore CPU support Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles) Powerful C++ API Comprehensive performance profiling system Flexible XML-based data structures We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11. Great performance at these settings, with both systems delivering a little over 40 fps. Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings. The system scores 26936 points, via the the Core i7 3960X EE @ 42,832 points and the HD 6970 @ 23,970 points. 3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page. The system is held back significantly by the HD6970 which scores 5,514 points. The Physics score is almost 14,000 points. Overall, the system scores 6,079 points. SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting. It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc. Native ports for all major operating systems are available: Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86) Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64) Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64) Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01) Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02) All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of: SMP – Multi-Processor MC – Multi-Core SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86 IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit The Core i7 3960X EE leads the group by a clear margin in all tests. The Quad Channel G SKILL Ripjaws Z @ 2133mhz delivers over 45 GB/s of bandwidth which is 5GB/s more than the 1600mhz memory we used in the Asus P9X79 Deluxe review, and around 5GB/s less than the 2,400mhz Corsair GTX8 memory used in the Asus Rampage IV Extreme Edition review. Whatever way you look at it, this is some serious bandwidth! CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free. Even with an 800mhz (x6) clock advantage, the Core i7 990x fails to outperform the Core i7 3960X EE. A score over 12 points at 4.2ghz is class leading. Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64 to test the Patriot Pyro drive. Great SATA 3 performance from the Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 motherboard, scoring around 470 MB/s and 480 MB/s sequential read and write, respectively. Solid 4k and 4K QD32 performance also. The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. Great performance from the ATTO benchmark, peaking at around 560 MB/s read and 505 MB/s write. The creators of the new AIDA 64 2.00 benchmark contacted us just before our launch coverage went live today and while we didn’t have time for a full multi platform analysis, we wanted to include some results from the Intel i7 3960X EE / Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 / 16GB GSkill Ripjaws Z (2133mhz) system @ 4.2ghz. This means you can download the free trial and compare against your own system. HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection. There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we. This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis. Read our initial analysis over here Sapphire HD6970 Dial 4 Dial with static pattern 5 Gray Bars 5 Violin 5 Stadium 2:2 5 Stadium 3:2 5 Horizontal Text Scroll 5 Vertical Text Scroll 5 Transition to 3:2 Lock 5 Transition to 2:2 Lock 0 2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video 5 2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video 5 3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed 5 5:5 FPS Animation 5 6:4 12 FPS Animation 5 8:7 8 FPS Animation 5 Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP) 5 Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE) 5 Random Noise: Sailboat 5 Random Noise: Flower 5 Random Noise: Sunrise 5 Random Noise: Harbour Night 5 Scrolling Text 5 Roller Coaster 5 Ferris Wheel 5 Bridge Traffic 5 Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text 5 Roller Coaster 5 Ferris Wheel 5 Bridge Traffic 5 Luminance Frequency Bands 5 Chrominance Frequency Bands 5 Vanishing Text 5 Resolution Enhancement 15 Theme Park 5 Driftwood 5 Ferris Wheel 5 Skin Tones 7 Total 196 196 points is a class leading score and indicates stellar image quality with a configured television or monitor. V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today. Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results. Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs. Major new features: Slate: A node based material editor. Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU. Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik. Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor FBX file linking Save to Previous Release (2010) We created a new 8200×3200 scene and recorded the time for the hardware to finalise the render. The 990X EE was the clear leader, until the release of the 3960X EE as the new architecture reduces the time to render this scene, noticeably. CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats. Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology. New and Improved Features Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously. Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention. Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices. Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment. Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A. Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier. For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version which has been optimised for Sandybridge processors. Graphics acceleration is disabled to measure pure processor performance. This test doesn't stress all cores 100%, nonetheless it is a good 'real world' encoding process. The Core i7 2600k @ 5ghz, delivers a close result against the Core i7 3960X EE @ 4.2ghz in this particular test. Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests. Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Bluray Disc of ‘The Road’. A close set of results with the Core i7 3960X EE leading the group test. Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online. The 6 core processors score well with this high definition media test, averaging around 6-6.5 percent CPU load. Handbrake is a fantastic free program which we wanted to include to confirm findings with Media Espresso, earlier in the review. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. We used the latest V 0.9.5 for testing today across all platforms. We encoded an DVD.MPG file. The Core i7 3960X EE is a class leader with encoding, verified by these results. The tremendous memory bandwidth clearly helps to boost overall throughput, supported by the high running 2133mhz G.SKILL memory. Battlefield 3 debuts the new Frostbite 2 engine. The updated Frostbite 2 engine can realistically portray the destruction of buildings and scenery to a greater extent than previous versions. Unlike previous iterations, the new version will be able to support dense urban areas. We tested this game in Eyefinity / HD6970 -with three screens running at 5760×1080 resolution. Our settings are shown above. A great game to play, especially across three screens in Eyefinity. Performance from all systems is very strong although we found the 3960X EE with the 2133mhz quad channel memory really pushed the boundaries in our intensive test environment. Power consumption is a hot topic of conversation in recent months as people are paying more attention to their electricity bills and overall energy footprint. We used a calibrated meter to measure the power at the wall. Firstly we analysed the power drain when all systems were at reference clock speeds (Core i7 3960X EE @ 3.3ghz, Core i5 2500k @ 3.3ghz, Core i7 2600k @ 3.4ghz, Core i7 2700k @ 3.5ghz and FX 8150 @ 3.6ghz). Next we overclocked the processors, increasing voltage settings. An efficient result especially when considering the class leading performance results. Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 The GA X79 UD3 is the first product we have reviewed from Gigabyte with the new '3D Bios' feature. This has clearly been designed to help inexperienced users feel more at home, as they can simply click on a 3D representation to adjust various options via sliders. In reality I can't say I warmed to it that much, preferring the old style text based user interface. It certainly isn't a bad idea, but I am apparently very stuck in my views and just wanted it out of the way as soon as possible. The younger audience might find it more appealing than I did. The GA X79 UD3 is a 'budget' oriented X79 product and as such loses half the memory slots, which will not really cause much of an issue for an enthusiast gamer. This audience will assuredly use 8GB or 16GB memory kits which will be widely available, and affordable at launch. On the other hand, those in the professional sector who need a system for 3D rendering or high definition video encoding may want to look at a more expensive motherboard with the full 8 memory slots. In this case configuring 32GB would only cost £165 via 8 x 4GB sticks. The GA X79 UD3 will need 4 x 8GB sticks, which right now will cost around £500. In other areas the GA X79 UD3 does not disappoint ... with a fully loaded I/O back panel and support for USB 3.0 devices and 6 GB/s drives. The latest SandForce 2281 solid state drives delivered excellent performance results from the Gigabyte board. We have no concerns with the stability of the board, although when compared against the more expensive Asus products we reviewed today it does seem to need a little more 'bios tweaking' to get total stability above 4.3ghz. We would assume this is because of early bios issues with the board, but had nothing newer before launch day to test further. We also noticed a few glitches with core voltage being 'reset' from time to time. If you are looking for an affordable X79 motherboard we have no hesitation recommending the GA X79 UD3, because at £199 inc vat it is affordable, yet powerful. Additionally, the G. Skill 2,133mhz memory worked without a hitch too, delivering a whopping 45GB/s of memory bandwidth. Pros: Competitive price point. high level of connectivity. impressive SATA performance. 2,133mhz Quad Channel memory worked without any effort. Good PCB layout. Cons: Only 4 memory slots, not the full 8. 3D Bios feature didn't appeal to me at all. Kitguru says: At £199 its a X79 'bargain' winner. Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition Processor I use the X58 platform on a regular basis, between multi monitor work based environments and for bursts of gaming .... on the rare occasion that I manage to get some downtime that is. Intel's 970, 980X and 990X have been personal favourites of mine now for some time, but X58 was long overdue a refresh. We can safely say that the Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition has rewritten the performance charts, even before we get to overclocking. Intel are promoting the new X79 platform as a 'master of all trades', and we fail to find a valid argument against this. It can not only outperform any system on the market when it comes to gaming prowess, but for more serious duties such as 3D rendering and video encoding it is without question, in a class of its own. While the Core architecture is both efficient and brutally powerful on a clock per core basis, the quad channel memory architecture is responsible for further enhancing the overall system performance. SiSoft Sandra gives an indication of over 45 GB/s of bandwidth available from this 2,133 mhz Quad channel configuration, which is over double the performance of the previous generation. Overclocking the Core i7 3960X EE is relatively easy, although when paired up with the Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 it needed substantial fine tuning and tweaking in the power areas of the bios, to achieve total stability above 4.6ghz. The Asus P9X79 Deluxe and Rampage IV Extreme make for a more appealing partner if very high clock speeds are a primary prerequisite. Just be prepared to pay a lot more money. AMD have unfortunately not released a solution to target this ultra high end enthusiast sector and we are left with the FX 8150 Black Edition, which in reality fails to even outclass Intel's 'mainstream high end' Core i7 2600k or 2700k. That said, we were also surprised to see that the FX 8150 could actually demand more watts at the socket than this i7 3960X EE, depending on the settings. UK pricing has not yet been confirmed for the i7 3960X Extreme Edition, but as we said earlier in the review, we would make an educated guess around £800 inc vat. Sure its expensive, but like the last generation 970, 980X and 990X this new chip redefines the ultra high end sector. A selection of the enthusiast audience will be willing to pay for this. Pros: Sets a new performance level. Great overclocking capabilities, only limited by the cooling solution. Quad Channel memory architecture is a significant new technology. Ideal for 3D Rendering and video encoding. Power consumption demands are relatively modest at reference settings. Cons: It is a significant financial investment. Kitguru says: If performance is your primary concern then the Core i7 3960X EE should be right at the top of your shortlist. G.Skill Ripjaws Z 2133mhz Memory. We really had great experiences with the G.Skill Ripjaws Z 2133mhz memory. It worked 'out of the box' without any user intervention when paired up with the Gigabyte GA X79 UD3 motherboard, delivering a whopping 45 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is over twice the performance of the previous generation and it also noticeably helps to improve overall system performance, recordable with tools such as Cinebench R11.5 and when performing real world 3D rendering and video encoding duties. We have no pricing information yet for this kit, but G Skill have always proven to be very competitive with their product range. Pros: Very fast - delivers around 45 GB/s of memory bandwidth. 16gb 2,133mhz strikes a great balance between 32GB 1,600 mhz and 8GB 2,400 mhz configurations. small heatspreader. Cons: None. Kitguru says: Another quality product from G.Skill and ideal for a variety of tasks.